The use of cellular systems has evolved from speech-only into the use of a multitude of different services, many of them IP-based, i.e. based on the Internet Protocol. An operator of a cellular system naturally has a desire to keep the service quality provided to users of the cellular system at as high a level as possible, since this will give the operator a competitive edge. Thus, there is also a desire for an operator to be able to measure the service quality provided to users. Existing methods for measuring the service quality provided to users comprise the RTP/RTCP protocol and the RTCP/XR protocols.
More and more applications which are executed on user terminals in cellular systems are so called “over the top” services, i.e. services which are not provided by the operator of the system, but services for which it is still important to maintain a high level of quality of service. Typically, “over the top services” do not use the RTP protocol, and thus, reporting solutions based on the RTP/RTCP or RTCP/XR protocols cannot be used.
Different over the top services may require service from different nodes in a cellular system, so a solution to measuring the quality of service for over the top services, as well as detecting and, where applicable, remedying degradation of the quality of service for over the top services, should be possible to apply in different nodes in a cellular system.